


Now That We Found Love (What Are We Gonna Do)?

by pete_za



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M, Slow Burn, dex is a angsty idiot, didnt have to google beyonce lyrics for this one, i’ll update the tags as the story continues, jack and shitty may be mentioned later on but will be minior characters, nursey is an emo fuck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2016-11-20
Packaged: 2018-08-09 05:59:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7789372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pete_za/pseuds/pete_za
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When archenemies Dex and Nursey are paired up as defensemen on their high school’s hockey team, their ultimatum is to act civil towards each other for the rest of the season, or to be kicked off the team. Which should be totally easy, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The List

“Nurse,” Dex snarled. 

“Poindexter,” Nursey scoffed.

The boys glowered at each other; Dex was entering the showers just as Nursey was making his way out. The red head shoved past the darker skinned boy who stood in his way.

Nursey was mentally prepared for anything physical Dex could dish. He usually preferred talking problems out over resorting to violence, but being in the presence of Dex made him feel like trashing his pacifist ways.

“Whatever you say, Weasley.”

“Why didn’t your parents just send you to boarding school?” Dex huffed.

Derek Nurse didn’t even bother to answer. He just flipped his middle finger, gripped the towel that was slouched around his hips tighter, and kept walking.

 

That was the way it had always been between them. No one could really remember why Dex and Nursey didn’t get along. Everyone just assumed that they had come out of the womb destined to hate each other. It was easier to rationalize their actions that way. If you had been witness to the biggest rivalry in the town of Samwell the last twelve years, a good deal of the details would get a little murky. Neither of them would tell, but neither Dex nor Nursey could remember how their mutual hatred had started either.

 

* * *

 

“Hey y’all, as much as an honor it would be for me to read this year’s roster out loud, Murray and Hall posted it on the bulletin board outside their office.”

A cluster of high school boys stared blankly at Eric Bittle, captain of the Samwell High hockey team. It was July, and hockey camp was coming to a close. When the roster wasn’t posted by the locker room after the final practice that afternoon, every single boy that tried out decided to hunt Bitty down for answers.

“…Y’all are blocking my car.”

The hoard of boys that stood around Eric’s Camry in the school’s parking lot bolted away in search of the list.

“Hey Bits,” Nursey greeted once most had run off.

“Hey Nursey.” Bitty’s eyes darted around. The shorter boy haphazardly threw his hockey bag in the back seat of this car. “Is this…about the list?" 

Nursey’s eyebrows disappeared in his hairline, and he choked out a casual laugh. “ _No_! Why would you ask that?”

“You only come to me if you want something from me, Nurse,” Bitty crossed his arms, every trace of his usual polite Southern drawl gone.

“Fine, you got me. This _is_ about the list.” Derek “Chill” Nurse leaned on the car and crossed his arms. Whatever answer he got from Bitty would be fine. It’d be chill in fact.

“Look, I know how you and Dex feel about each other–Hall and Murray know for goodness sake–but we aren’t changing our decision.”

“ _What the fuck_? I swear to fucking God if that red headed step child got the first string spot instead of me–

Bitty’s mouth popped open. “Um, Nursey, honey…y’all are _both_ on first string. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Wait? What are _you_ talking about? I just wanted to know if I made first string or not.”

The blond smiled weakly and his gaze trailed past Nursey to linger on a figure running towards them in the parking lot.

“Off course you’re first string Nursey. It’s your junior year; you have privilege–

“What does this have to do with Dex?” he said slowly.

“You see–

“Bits! Why the _hell_ are me and Nurse D-Men?” The figure was now close enough to yell. The figure wore a flannel. The figure had bright orange hair. The figure was infamous in Nursey’s dictionary. It was Dex.

Nursey gritted his teeth and ripped his beanie off this head, throwing it to the pavement. “This ends today.”

As he approached Bitty and Nursey, Dex rolled his eyes. "What are you gonna to do sissy boy? Fight me?”

Nursey bridged the distance between him and Dex and punched him square in the face.

 

* * *

 

Because Bitty was too small to break the fight up he called some of the frogs over to pull them apart and drag them into Hall and Murray’s office.

Coach Hall did not look happy. He never really looked happy, but he looked extra not happy in this moment. “Here’s your ultimatum Nurse, Poindexter. Either you learn to play on the same line, as defensemen, and get along, or you both are off the team.”

“ _What_!” Dex screeched, “You can’t do that!” 

“Just watch me Poindexter. Murray and I will not stand for the both of you arguing for the rest of the season.”

“Fine, I’ll be decent to him,” Nursey mumbled.

“Hear, hear,” Dex rolled his eyes and slouched farther down in the chair he sat.

“Oh shut the _hell_ up, Billy."

“Don’t fucking call me–

“ _BOYS_!” Coach H boomed.

The both of them had a feeling like they wouldn’t be playing hockey their senior year.

“I said this a couple years back to a different duo, and I’ll say it again,” Coach Murray spoke up over the deafening silence, leaning cooly on the desk, “ _you guys’ll make each other better players_.”


	2. The Bench & Bad Hockey Quotes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fistfights weren’t far and between and verbal arguments spawned from cruel chirps, to missing passes. Dex and Nursey were acting like children, a fact that everyone was aware of and no one was spared of, and the pair knew it. When the roster was announced, they promised to make a change. It was an empty promise because they knew as well as everyone else did that old habits die hard.

The Samwell High hockey team had a quote painted inside the locker room, right above the door, that they smacked as they exited the room as a pre-game ritual.

 

It read: “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. –Wayne Gretzky” in a blocky font and it was awful. Not because they hated the Great One, but because the words painted on the wall is probably one of the most overused sayings in the history of the world. There were so many _other_ perfectly good quotes they could’ve been subjected to, but no, when the locker rooms were being painted some dumbass thought, “Huh, guess I’ll put the Gretzky quote up there, the kids’ll get a kick outta that.”

 

While most of the boys regarded the quote as a vague tradition and scared the frogs with superstitions based around it, Captain Eric Bittle, from his first tour of the locker room, took it 100% seriously.

 

As the team filed out of the locker room for an afterschool practice, Bitty looked at the quote and knew that there was a shot he had to take to move his team forward.

 

* * *

              

“ _Poindexter_! _Nurse_! _Bench, now_!” Bitty shouted one Friday afternoon at practice.

 

The school year had already begun and hockey season was due to start in less than a month, but Dex and Nursey had made little to no progress towards being friendly toward each other. If anything, their relationship had gotten _worse_ since the summer.

 

Bittle threw down his stick and flew over to the duo that had begun shoving each other on the ice.

 

“I thought we were supposed to fight opposing teams, not each other?” Tango’s question came out like a chirp.

 

Bitty jostled Dex out of Nursey’s grip, finally able to catch their attention. If they’d been able to continue, gloves would have hit the ice. His teeth were gritted and if Dex and Nursey could see through the thick padding of his gloves, his knuckles would be white. “ _I don’t think y’all heard me correctly. I said, Bench. Now_ ,” his southern accent slurred and softened his soft vowels into something angry.

 

No one on the team had ever seen Bitty this livid before. No one had ever seen his lips that tight. No one had ever seen that specific steaming rage in his eyes. This was an emotion that rarely lived on Bitty’s usually content visage; it was the bitter mix of resent and disappointment, an unfamiliar teammate and total brute of a player. Knowing that if they challenged Bitty on his decision they wouldn’t live to see the next day, or another pie for that matter, Dex and Nursey quietly skated over to the bench and sat on opposite ends.

 

“Ollie! Wicks! You’re up. Have fun taking their spots today!” He reached to clap Ollie O’Meara on the back with his clunky, gloved hand. “We all still may be high school students,” Bitty projected his voice over the rink full of rowdy boys, “but that is _no_ reason not to take what we’re doing as a team seriously. It’s not your name on the back of the jersey that matters, it’s the logo on the front.”

 

“Didn’t Crosby say that?” Tango whispered to Whiskey.

 

“Think so,” he replied, “Bitty’s _got_ to stop with all these hockey quotes.”

 

Coach Hall spoke up, “That’s right Bittle. In the end, you guys are here for a good game and some ice time, but do you want these countess practices put to waste by getting eliminated from the series before we even hit the brackets?”

 

By now, they had moved on from lecturing Dex and Nursey to preach to the entire team. The rink full of Wellies was silent.

 

“That’s what I thought. Now shape up.”

 

The shrill of a whistle came from the bench. Heads swiveled toward the sound.

 

It was Lardo, the team manager turned Junior Coach. She had graduated the year before, but needed a job to help get her through college. The coaches allowed her back with the bonuses of a salary, a nice title, and a whistle that let her boss the boys around whenever she felt like it. “LET’S GO BOYS, SHAPING UP WASN’T A _SUGGESTION_. IT WAS AN _ORDER_. I WANT TO SEE SOME PASSING DRILLS HAPPENING IN THE NEXT SIXTY SECONDS.” The whistle blow was even shriller the second time. “MAKE IT HAPPEN.”

 

All the boys who hadn’t been close with Lardo when she was team manager were _terrified_ of her. Her small figure in no way prepared them for her set of lungs. They scrambled to get pucks for the drills and Bitty nodded at Lardo from center ice. Panicked players avoided her steely gaze as they lined up for drills.

 

* * *

 

Coach Murray and Lardo pulled Dex and Nursey aside after practice on their way back to the locker room.

 

Nursey groaned something about wanting to be the first dude to hit the showers before all the hot water ran out. Dex responded to this statement by calling him a pussy and that they were benched too long to even break into a sweat.

 

Lardo held her tongue. She made an executive decision previously to play nice today. “Look dudes. Hall, Murray, Bitty, me–everyone–decided it would be best for you two to sit out the first couple games until you get your shit together.”

 

“It _is_ together,” Dex protested while Nursey attempted to reason that they were listed on the roster as first string and would potentially be starting games.

 

“There’s twenty other boys on this team, that’s all I’m saying Nurse.” Murray tried to remain as moderate as possible on all issues, and this was one of those times.

 

Coach Murray shrugged and walked off and eventually, after a stare down, so did Lardo. Nursey sighed and turned to face Dex in an attempt to knock knuckles with his enemy turned co-defenseman. Dex pretended to not notice the fist that lingered in his personal space.

 

“Look Poindexter,” Nursey rolled his eyes, “just grow a pair, get over it, and fist bump me.”

 

William Poindexter shot a despairing look at his curly haired foe. “Whatever I gotta do to stay on the team.”

 

“That’s the spirit y’all!” Their captain clapped excitedly in applause. They both jumped at the sudden sound and apparition of Bittle out of what seemed thin air. “Now, let’s go home and get rested for next week!”

 

With one glance the boys noticed that Bitty had already showered and had his book bag slung on his back. He swiveled on the heel of his Doc Martens and started walking towards the exit, “See y’all Monday morning, have a productive weekend!” Bittle stopped as his hand lay on the handle to the gym door, “Maybe hang out or something this weekend, bonding beyond the ice might help. Ooh! I might text y’all some fun teambuilding exercises!”

 

“We’ll see about that one, Cap!” Nursey called, it was supposed to sound sarcastic, but he actually liked that idea.

 

Dex tapped Nursey’s fist, the contact came as a surprise to the brown boy. His eyebrows rose.

 

“Oh fuck off,” Dex chuckled, and began to head towards the showers, “don’t get used to it Nurse.”

 

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Nursey mumbled, and followed the red head into the locker room.


End file.
